Rorzikel

Division splits molecular bonds, not atomic. No fission utility to be found there.

I think the tack has changed the goals so immensely that it gives the reader whiplash. Before it definitely looked like Brandon was going for “other personalities bad, Shallan should be the only personality at the end of her character arc.” But now that he decided to go fully into DID that character arc probably won’t happen that way, which gives the aforementioned whiplash in readers (especially those not WoB aware) that had the story previously give the setup for an arc in the first three books and now the fourth is going off in a different direction. One that I’m good with, but one that also doesn’t perfectly line up with previous characterization and foreshadowing.

I uh... don’t really see the hideous crime of not publishing research as a thing. Vasher’s experience with a III gen shardblade is freaking Nightblood. Y’know the most dangerous nonshardic being in the Cosmere? Shashara then states that she has the wonderful idea of mass producing the cosmere equivalent of the Tsar Bomba that thinks and is hungry for souls. Mate, if I was the only person who knew how to make a nuke or anthrax I sure as Braize wouldn’t be telling anyone. Academia can get stuffed when there’s entire planets of people that could be slaughtered by your actions. The only morally questionable thing Vasher did there was kill his wife instead of searching for another route, I couldn’t care less about it not ending in an academic journal.

I’m really of the opinion that nicrosil compounding/storing is what Brandon is referring to when he says there’s a way to use Feruchemy to enhance Allomancy.

I wonder if perhaps it’s a Willshaper ability. Transportation and Cohesion seem like they could have a resonance that brings over material from Shadesmar to be shaped into buildings. Fits the whole Maker archetype.

For example, “honor cultures” tend to be extremely oppressive in their traditionalism, especially to women, and have greater rates of violence. Honor can be a very nasty thing, especially when people are speaking of it in regards to character- “I must defend my honor!” over a mild insult that escalates into maiming or murder. Think of cultures like medieval Japan or the Romans where one could remove shame from their families by committing suicide. Doing so was seen as the right thing to do. Women don’t appear that frequently in Roman histories and legends, but there is story of Lucretia that was celebrated and honored by the Romans. She was raped by Tarquin the son of one of the seven kings of Rome, and in response demanded that her husband and father take vengeance before stabbing herself in the heart. Lucretia isn’t seen as a madwoman by the Romans, she’s seen as someone brave. Honor can be, again, quite nasty in it’s execution. That’s not that hard, tbh. They’re essentially “What if the Native Americans made a pact with Satan.” If you look at it as the heralds are locking us up here so that their people have more time to finish the genocide of my people and every moment they haven’t broken more of our lands are stolen at knifepoint, well... [removed by moderator]

... I mean like in the sense that it’s always windspren as a spren “species” that are drawn to Kal or gloryspren to Dalinar. I’m saying that a certain type (perhaps relevant to the stonewards) of subspren could be used in that fabrial and Taravangian could still be speaking truthfully about “at another time, might have blessed a Knight Radiant” but not be speaking of Truespren.

The Forumlurker (paraphrased) Can a Windrunner use a Basic Lashing on a specific body part? Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased) Yes, but it works the same way a Steelpusher could push on a specific part of metal. Usually, you'd just affect the whole body, because of its Identity and cosmere magic not working as well on parts of something that considers itself a unit. When you're very skilled, you can isolate a hand, like Kelsier could push on specific sections of metal. Stuttgart signing (May 17, 2019) I kinda like the idea of the gorier version tbh. Makes the whole "cuts on all three realms" a little more accurate. Could still have the eyes burn out as well.

That was Dalinar, sorry, I should have formatted it better. Taravangian is arguing the slavery angle.

So here’s the actual quote for context: My take on it after the Syl interlude and pretty confirmation of the cousinspren plate theory is that Mr. T is referring to the subspren that could be bonded to a radiant as armor.

Eh. Not even Brandon considers them to be human. They’re reincarnating immortals who have been alive for about as long as humans on Earth have had writing. They haven’t even slept in thousands of years according to Ash. To be blunt, the average Parshendi is far less alien to ordinary humans than the Heralds. I don’t think they’re picking up that Jasnah is the person you’re referring to as possibly holding Taln and Ash against their will.

It’s why for instance Kaladin’s brands refuse to heal and why Rysn remains wheelchair bound despite Renarin using Progression on her, yet Lopen regains his hand and Renarin doesn’t need glasses anymore. How one thinks of themselves subconsciously has a huge effect on how magical regeneration affects them.

Could also read the fantastic chapter summaries on the Coppermind: Way of Kings Words of Radiance Oathbringer They’re incredibly well made and quite in depth.

There’s been an implication that Gavilar was trying to become a cognitive shadow. Personally I think he failed to do so before his untimely death and was referring to some other stage of his plans when he told Szeth to tell Thaidakar(? Or was it Restares?) that it was too late.

I think we’re having a fundamentally different understanding of what is being described by Kal. I understand it as “surrounded by aluminum” When I read the lines, what I believe it is trying to say is that it is a fabrial spear with attachments of aluminum plating to protect that spear from being lopped in half. There’s a metric boatload of WoBs and in book statements that refer to it exactly opposite- a nonconductive substance.

You’re making an assumption here, that aluminum prevents any fabrial from working. This isn’t me trying to propose that there’s some theoretical fabrial that can bypass aluminum’s effects, but rather that you’re presuming that merely that being surrounded by (not even that here, it’s more of an open ended tube) aluminum automatically shuts off all fabrial effects. We know for a fact that that is not true with Azure’s soulcaster working inside an aluminum lined room that simultaneously stops spanreeds from working: (Oathbringer, pg. 785-786 on my mobile kindle app) Similarly you can't really overcharge a battery(without a lot of power and then it tends to blow up) and if you break a circuit it stops working as electrons don't want to be concentrated in too small an area. Taking the similarity one stop further what if aluminum is a conductor of investiture? This would explain how they manage to drain stormlight out of a radiant. Connect a gemstone to some aluminum and the stone will pull the investiture out of the radiant and into the stone. Cut the stone right to make sure it leaks easily and you can expend most of radian'ts power into the air. This would also explain scadrail spoilers. People who are good at undergraduate physics and everyone else please correct my mistakes. We also have pretty explicit confirmation from Brandon that that is not how aluminum works: Wouldn’t suck all the power out like a Larkin and he makes the difference clear between being inert and blocking investiture like aluminum, and sucking investiture out.

Not sure I entirely agree with that assessment. I think some people are pushing back against the idea of a completely evil Gavilar for a variety of reasons, but I don't really see people try to justify or side with Gavilar's treatment of Navani in the chapter. I think pretty much everyone can agree that he's being meaninglessly cruel to hurt her, that he's gaslighting and sabotaging her self-esteem by ragging on her dreams of being an Artifabrian, and that he has some pretty sexist attitudes in how he views his wife as a golddigging whore/parasitic leech. The things he did to Navani have no good reason, even if he wanted to distract her from learning something or push her away "for her own safety," there are far better, far easier even, ways to do so without harming his wife emotionally like that. Edit: Thank you for the analysis and your perspective by the way, I'll be sure to check it out. As a Truthwatcher I feel compelled to remind you what the official quiz said about fact and fiction.

I think there needs to a pretty drastic delineation in people's understanding between other users supporting real life abusers in real situations hurting real victims and those same users arguing a fictional character who's teleporting little fairies back and forth from hell might be a person that we can discuss the rationales and motivations that formed them without serious ethical concerns. There's been plenty of people in the fandom who have (mock or otherwise) argued for the Lord Ruler, and yet I doubt any of those people are really down with genocidal dictatorships or stabbing others with pointy nails. If Gavilar has ever actually done something positive in his life, recognizing whatever that is will not revictimize Navani, because she's not real. The most that could really be said, I suppose, is that it somehow vaguely contributes to a greater culture of abuse, in which case my reply is that I didn't find much credence for the Video Games Cause Violence! moral panic either.

Brandon described Aethers as being the last major magic system that we haven’t seen yet in the most recent livestream.

I see some fair utility for hemalurgy in that case, good point.

Not going to lie, that’s pretty messed up. What you’re suggesting here is equivalent to taking organs of death row prisoners without their consent. Now, depending on your personality and ethics system, you might be perfectly fine taking hearts and kidneys of serial killers and you might be fine with ripping part of Dagouter’s soul off. It’s a position that some people hold in the real world. What’s problem then, you’ve gotten rid of Miles? Good riddance! The problem is the system you’ve created. You’ve created an incentive to convict metalborn with useful powers and sentence them to the death penalty. In our world there’s been 170 exonerations since 1973 in the United States and Professor Samuel Gross in a study has said that there were and are roughly 4 percent of death row inmates who are innocent. He also said that he has no doubt innocent people have been put to death. Here’s an example of a person considered to have been innocent after they died: A man with the mind of a six year old was coerced into confessing for a crime he was not present for and was gassed to death. That was all to close a case. Imagine now that Arridy had something rare and valuable that could only be taken with his death. Anybody with a useful ability is going to have a dramatically higher risk of getting capital punishment or increased sentencing, all so that most likely some rich dirtbag will do a favor for someone in the justice system to get their grubby mitts on a chunk of stolen soul.

I think it's just general Rosharan superstition that's rubbed off on Abiajan given she calls unclean water, sanitation and germ theory mere superstition. She's also been in slaveform all her life as have all her ancestors have been for 2,000 years, so she has little ingrained cultural knowledge about forms and spren bonding, all this is recent to her.

Given Stargyle is named after Steve Argyle I think they're a he.

The real kicker would be if we never heard anything more about him surviving over the entirety of the Stormlight series and assume he just kicked the bucket, but then he pops up in MB Era 4.